<p id="">Verizon announced on Friday its decision to scrap all its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs after pressure from Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brendan Carr.</p><p id="">Immediately upon taking office, President Trump signed an executive order prohibiting the federal government from funding institutions that practice “illegal and immoral” DEI, and ordering federal agencies to purge the private sector of the discriminatory practice. Verizon was among some corporations that refused to abandon the ideology and repackaged their programs to avoid scrutiny from the Trump administration.</p><h2 id="">Verizon official: DEI is ‘alive and well’</h2><p id="">On May 14th, Verizon’s Board Finance Committee Chair Mark Bertolini described to attendees at Axios’ inaugural Future of Health Summit how the telecommunications giant has rebranded its DEI, which he boasted was “alive and well.”</p><p id="">“You don’t use certain words, like DEI — bad word,” Bertolini said. “You change the nomenclature that you use — same product, right? I sit on the Verizon board. I chair their finance committee. Our DEI effort is alive and well — it’s just not called that anymore. They’re not employee resource groups, they’re business resource groups. It’s a way to keep going and keep doing what we believe as an organization is important toward the product we deliver to the marketplace . . . You have to be careful about the words you use.”</p><p id="">Bertolini’s remarks came as FCC Commissioner Carr has been warning Verizon about its DEI practices. In February, Carr wrote a letter to the corporation saying he was “concerned by the apparent lack of progress at Verizon” in eliminating DEI.</p><div data-rt-embed-type='true'><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I am concerned by Verizon’s continued focus on promoting DEI.<br><br>I expect all regulated businesses to end invidious forms of discrimination. <a href="https://t.co/b2536EeOmk">pic.twitter.com/b2536EeOmk</a></p>&mdash; Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1895211283089367318?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 27, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><h2 id="">Verizon quickly announces changes</h2><p id="">A day after Bertolini’s comments, Verizon issued a statement announcing the end of DEI at the company.</p><p id="">“Verizon recognizes that some DEI policies and practices could be associated with discrimination,” Verizon Chief Legal Officer Vandana Venkatesh wrote. “Verizon is making these changes to its practices not just in name or in the way they are described, but in substance. These changes are effective immediately.”</p><p id="">Venkatesh emphasized that the company will no longer have teams or roles dedicated to DEI and will modify its training materials to exclude mentions of the ideology. It will also no longer focus on “diversity” metrics when considering corporate sponsorships, and will no longer force its suppliers to observe DEI. The company said it will drop its workforce diversity goals, which included a management compensation plan that disfavored men and White employees.</p><p id="">However, Venkatesh wrote that its employee resource groups (ERGs), a euphemism for voluntary DEI groups, will now be under the oversight of Verizon’s Human Resources department, which will include employees who are being transferred from their official DEI roles. It remains to be seen whether a totalitarian DEI&nbsp;culture will persist, even if not officially sanctioned.</p><p id="">Nevertheless, Commissioner Carr celebrated the announcement.</p><p id="">“Verizon has now agreed to end its DEI policies as specified in a new FCC filing,” he wrote on X. “These changes are effective immediately. A good step forward for equal opportunity, nondiscrimination, and the public interest.”</p><div data-rt-embed-type='true'><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Verizon has now agreed to end its DEI policies as specified in a new FCC filing.<br><br>These changes are effective immediately.<br><br>A good step forward for equal opportunity, nondiscrimination, and the public interest. <a href="https://t.co/4a0SYgFcr2">https://t.co/4a0SYgFcr2</a> <a href="https://t.co/yrVdUVrxmV">pic.twitter.com/yrVdUVrxmV</a></p>&mdash; Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1923355671036035101?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 16, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><p id="">‍</p>

Verizon vows to scrap DEI

‍The telecommunications giant had rebranded its DEI programs to evade the Trump administration

<p id="">Congressional lawmakers are ramping up their efforts to repeal the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.</p><p id="">The FACE Act makes it a federal crime “to use force with the intent to injure, intimidate and interfere with anyone” who provides abortion services. Although this Clinton-era law also protects pregnancy centers and churches, it was originally intended to protect abortion. The Biden administration weaponized the law almost exclusively to protect abortion centers, and federal prosecutors often stretched it to cover Americans who so much as peacefully protest abortion. Taxpayers charged with the FACE Act have been subjected to violent raids by the FBI, similar to those visited on the January 6th hostages.&nbsp;</p><h2 id="">The DOJ memo</h2><p id="">In January, the Trump DOJ issued a memo limiting federal prosecution under the FACE Act. The law will now only apply to “extraordinary circumstances” or cases involving “death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage.” The memo also stated that prosecution of abortion-related FACE Act violations will require special authorization from the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.</p><h2 id="">The FACE Act Repeal Act of 2025</h2><p id="">Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers introduced legislation to repeal the FACE Act. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) introduced H.R. 589, also known as the FACE Act Repeal Act of 2025, while Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced a companion bill in the Senate. On Wednesday, the FACE Act Repeal Act will go through the markup process, which means committees will analyze the legislation and determine whether it should be recommended to the full House plenary.</p><p id="">“Over the past 4 years, we have witnessed the weaponization of the justice system, using the FACE Act to jail Americans fighting for the right to life,” Rep. Roy <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-house-moves-to-repeal-face-act-after-years-of-weaponization" id="">told</a><em id=""> The Daily Wire</em>. “It is not enough to merely end Biden-Harris era discrimination — we must act to reverse course, ensuring selective and unfair political prosecutions are never again possible under this statute.” The law would protect Americans even if a new president were to reverse President Trump's executive order.</p><h2 id="">No FACE Act for pregnancy centers</h2><p id="">As it weaponized the FACE Act to crack down on pro-life Americans, the Biden DOJ <a href="https://www.thegoldreport.com/news/doj-turns-a-blind-eye-to-attacks-on-pro-lifers" id="">turned</a> a blind eye to a string of violent domestic terror attacks on Christian pro-life pregnancy centers. After these attacks numbered over 100, the House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the violence and demanding action from the Biden administration.</p><h2 id="">The FACE Act was passed to ‘stifle free speech’</h2><p id="">President Trump in January issued an executive order pardoning dozens of pro-life Americans targeted by Biden’s DOJ for protesting abortion, adding that it was a “great honor” to sign the order.&nbsp;</p><p id="">One of those pardoned, a father of 11 named Paul Vaughn, was violently raided by the FBI at his home on an early September morning in 2022 for peacefully protesting abortion. Agents arrested Vaughn at gunpoint and terrorized his wife and children.</p><p id="">“The FACE Act was ostensibly passed because of violence. But as my family knows very well, all it did was give violence the cover of law and place it in the hands of the government,” Vaughn <a href="https://www.thegoldreport.com/news/pro-life-father-describes-horrifying-fbi-raid-to-congress" id="">said</a> in testimony to Congress, adding that the FACE Act was passed to “stifle free speech and abuse the rights of Christian conservatives.”</p><p id="">‍</p>

GOP lawmakers continue push to repeal FACE Act

The law was weaponized against Christian pro-life Americans

<p id="">A German court has handed down a lenient sentence to a child sex trafficker because he identifies as transgender.</p><p id=""><em id="">Reduxx </em><a href="https://reduxx.info/exclusive-details-german-trans-identified-male-who-procured-children-for-millionaire-pedophile-to-rape-given-lenient-sentence-due-to-gender-identity/" id="">reported</a> last week that a Munich judge sentenced Arbend S., a 31-year-old man who claims to be a woman, to five years and six months in prison for running a child prostitution operation. Arbend lured several young girls, some under eight years old, into having sex with 81-year-old millionaire Helmut Reiner Dorsch. The two men met in 2018 on an online platform, and since then, Dorsch has paid Arbend thousands of euros to procure children for sex and deliver them to his villa. Arben recorded the sexual abuse and produced other child pornography by altering adult pornographic images.</p><h2 id="">A lenient sentence for ‘heightened prison sensitivity’</h2><p id="">On May 6th, the 20th Criminal Chamber of Munich Regional Court I sentenced Dorsh to four years and four months in prison for severe sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography, and planning the sexual abuse of children.</p><p id="">Arbend, who was addressed with female pronouns throughout the trial, complained during a hearing that he would “suffer” in a men’s prison due to his gender identity. He was convicted of severe sexual abuse of children, forced prostitution, extortion, and producing child pornography, for which he received five and a half years in prison. Given the charges, this sentence was considered lenient, which the court felt was appropriate because of Arbend’s “heightened prison sensitivity.” The judge did not provide further explanation, but a court spokesperson explained to <em id="">Reduxx </em>that this “prison sensitivity” was based on Arbend’s self-identification as a “trans woman.” The spokesperson also said that the judge “assumes a heightened prison sensitivity for a trans-person, so that pre-trial detention, unlike the usual case, exceptionally served as a mitigating factor in this instance.” Prison sensitivity presumably refers to the perceived discrimination that transgender inmates claim to suffer.</p><h2 id="">A pedophile tries to ‘affirm her femininity’</h2><p id="">Arbend is not the only pedophile to receive a lenient sentence due to trangenderism. In March, a 41-year-old man calling himself “Sophie KoKo” was given 10 months' probation after he repeatedly exposed himself in public, solicited children for sex, and sprayed them with his urine. The judge agreed with the public defender that these acts were the pedophile’s attempts to “affirm her femininity.”</p><p id="">‍</p>

German court lessens sentence for child sex trafficker due to his ‘gender identity’

Pedophiles have received lenient sentences in Germany due to transgenderism

<p id="">The Justice Department has launched an investigation into former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for allegedly lying to Congress about his role in knowingly causing thousands of senior deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p id="">Cuomo has been blamed for the deaths of an estimated 4,000 seniors by knowingly ordering the transfer of COVID-19-infected patients to skilled nursing facilities. A report from New York Attorney General Letitia James later found that he had obscured the data to hide the deaths. Last year, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said there was “overwhelming evidence” that Cuomo had participated in an audit that undercounted COVID nursing home deaths by 46%.</p><p id="">On Tuesday, the <em id="">New York Times </em><a href="https://archive.is/SI9hK" id="">reported</a> that the DOJ is investigating Cuomo for allegedly falsely testifying to Congress about the scandal. The probe was launched last month by Ed Martin, who then served as the interim US Attorney in Washington, DC. The <em id="">Times </em>cited “two sources familiar with the matter,” though the DOJ refused to confirm or deny the investigation.</p><h2 id="">The mayoral candidate boasts about his record</h2><p id="">The investigation could complicate Cuomo’s bid for mayor of New York City, for which he is currently the Democrat party's favorite. Since he launched his campaign in March, Cuomo has repeatedly boasted about his response to the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p id="">“It was the greatest health crisis in our history—and when New Yorkers were desperate for leadership—Andrew Cuomo delivered,” a Cuomo campaign ad said this week. “He didn’t just provide information in those daily COVID briefings — he acted — building emergency hospitals and deploying first responders. And he provided hope — that we’d pull through this…together.”</p><p id="">Cuomo announced his resignation in August 2021 amid sexual harassment accusations. Before leaving office, he spent $5.1 million in taxpayer funds to publish a self-congratulatory book about his handling of the pandemic.</p><h2 id="">Wasteful spending on equipment</h2><p id="">A recent audit by New York Comptroller Tom DiNapoli found that the Cuomo administration spent $453 million on medical equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic that went unused. The state bought 247,343 medical devices, including CPAP/BiPAP machines, ventilators, oxygen tanks, pulse oximeters, oxygen concentrators, and infusion pumps. The state used just three devices, amounting to 0.000012% of the stockpile.</p><p id="">The $453 million purchase was done on the advice of the McKinsey Company, for which the state had paid a $5 million consulting fee. Rather than sell the unused devices to recoup taxpayer funds, the state has kept them languishing in storage for five years.</p><h2 id="">An exaggerated fear campaign</h2><p id="">The unused medical stockpile is the latest evidence that Cuomo exaggerated the danger of the virus. Even as he claimed that hospitals were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/nyregion/ny-coronavirus-usns-comfort.html" id="">reportedly</a> being “overrun,” Cuomo <a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/coronavirus/cuomo-tells-trump-usns-comfort-no-longer-needed-in-nyc/2384637/" id="">sent away</a> the USHS Comfort, a hospital vessel sent by President Trump to assist with the excess hospitalizations. Cuomo said the need for it did not match projections. There were also thousands of available beds at the Jacob Javits Convention Center that went unused.</p><p id="">‍</p>

Protecting your
Medical Freedom
and Civil Liberties

Stream What is a Doctor? Today!

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - A Good Doctor Speaks with Dr. Gold

Latest Work

Verizon vows to scrap DEI

GOP lawmakers continue push to repeal FACE Act

German court lessens sentence for child sex trafficker due to his ‘gender identity’

DOJ investigating Andrew Cuomo for false testimony over COVID deaths

Latest Videos

How Much IsYour Freedom Worth?